If you look at the profile, and not the front and rear stickers, you can see that the Camaro is the same silhouette as the Chevy SS. (Pardon the flipped SS photo, I couldn't find one in the same direction.)

If you look at the profile, and not the front and rear stickers, you can see that the Camaro is the same silhouette as the Chevy SS. (Pardon the flipped SS photo, I couldn't find one in the same direction.)

Ironically the roof line on the NASCAR replica was raised substantially. If Chevy were to redesign the street counterpart in a similar fashion maybe eventually consumers and magazine writers would stop writing about the "gun-slit" view out of today's Camaro. Had they tried to run the low roofline on the race car some of the larger drivers probably wouldn't have been able to worm their way into one.
The standardized body Daniel mentioned is in the AAA Xfinity series only starting next year. I believe it's optional to the team owners except at Talladega and Daytona.

With popularity dwindling by the day, NASCAR needs to rethink their process. The "Big 3" all have similar vehicles that appeal to this segment. All coupes, all RWD, all popular. Why doesn't NASCAR just let them run "real" Camaros, Mustangs, and Challengers? Kind of like the Australian V8 series, but with 2 doors? More "run on Sunday, sell on Monday" kind of cars? Something that reminds folks of back in the day versions that pitted manufacturers against each other for the glory? Oh no, that would not sit well with the sport derisively known as a Non Athletic Sport Centered Around Rednecks. No, they will just race identical Camrys and sell beer while they continue to sell out.

Auto racing in general is losing fans. The vast majority of racing vehicles today are not based on production vehicles. Even many so-called GT classes are populated by custom-framed wonders that bare little similarity to cars available in dealerships (e.g. all of NASCAR, so-called ATS-V in PWC, Corvettes in IMSA, top level Trans Am cars). The older demographic that fueled NASCAR's rise is dying off and/or buying less (as older generations are prone to do) with the next generations having less and less interest in auto racing. The only way for NASCAR to continue to exist at their present level (let alone increasing interest) is to steer their ship more toward the XTREME sport side of the spectrum to get the interest of those fans. The closer they come to that demographic will result in less similarity to actual auto racing. Auto racing simply is not relevant any longer, and "win on Sunday, sell on Monday" is long gone as evidenced by "24" decals on Hondas, "88" decals on other foreign makes, etc.

Auto racing in general is losing fans. The vast majority of racing vehicles today are not based on production vehicles. Even many so-called GT classes are populated by custom-framed wonders that bare little similarity to cars available in dealerships (e.g. all of NASCAR, so-called ATS-V in PWC, Corvettes in IMSA, top level Trans Am cars). The older demographic that fueled NASCAR's rise is dying off and/or buying less (as older generations are prone to do) with the next generations having less and less interest in auto racing. The only way for NASCAR to continue to exist at their present level (let alone increasing interest) is to steer their ship more toward the XTREME sport side of the spectrum to get the interest of those fans. The closer they come to that demographic will result in less similarity to actual auto racing. Auto racing simply is not relevant any longer, and "win on Sunday, sell on Monday" is long gone as evidenced by "24" decals on Hondas, "88" decals on other foreign makes, etc.

The road courses are interesting, the ovals are not. With the specs so close to comply with, watching a bunch of cars drafting is boring.

The road courses are interesting, the ovals are not. With the specs so close to comply with, watching a bunch of cars drafting is boring.

Totally agree. Even though Watkins Glen this year ended up as the poster child for fuel economy runs, it really was entertaining flag-to-flag. My wife likes to watch the entire race, but if left up to me I'd watch the first and last ten laps on the ovals as the intermediate laps are nothing but wrecks and drafting/passing exhibitions that are meaningless since the field constantly gets bunched up with interminable cautions. I mean how long does it take to pick up a water bottle in turn one? Five to ten laps in NASCAR! And Indy this year was the epitome of a cruel joke if anyone called that a race vs. a destruction derby.

That would be Toyota's problem. Ot NASCAR or the others. Let's see how they react. That is why they need Celicas on a IS platform. Supras compete in higher categories which is why the talk is for the Supra on the BMW derived platform

I hope Ford follows suit and replaces the Fusion with a Mustang. Just seems odd to me that these guys actually have RWD V8 coupes and instead would use a FWD turbo-4 familiy sedan. Though I guess it would be weird to have a Mustang, Camaro and then a Camry...

IMO, NASCAR is a bore. I'm sure I don't appreciate the nuances, but they never turn right (yeah yeah, a road coarse or two). And the cars shapes and drivetrains, that have nothing in common with street cars, are all regulated to near identical.

I think originally (50-60 years ago?) they were based on actual 'stock cars.'

Ah, marketing! All NASCAR cars are the same. It's not like the old days when a company would show up with something special and wax everyone with it. Nope, NASCAR won't let that happen ever again. Thus everything is pretty much equal and it's down to the drivers, team, and strategy.

Indeed, NASCAR needs to go back to the old Winston-Cup format, an all-out race from green to checker (this "phase" thing might as well be the dirt-track format: a couple of "heats" and then the "main"), and from Daytona to the last race (the "Chase" format of the Sprint Cup sucked too). I used to watch about half the races each season, now I'm down to 1 or two, one of those being Daytona in Feb.